Modernist Landscapes: Visionaries and Their Gardens on August 16
[Aug 25 – East Hampton, NY] — Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, Russell Page, Louis I. Kahn, Lawrence Halprin, Harriet Pattison, Robert Venturi, and Denise Scott Brown are the subjects of a full-day symposium at LongHouse Reserve on August 16th.The annual Landscape Legends is a captivating day of talks exploring the intersection of modernist architecture, landscape design, and cultural history. This year with renowned scholars Barry Bergdoll, Professor of Art History at Columbia University; Caleb Smith, Professor of English and American Studies at Yale University; William Whitaker, Curator and Collections Manager of the Architectural Archives of the University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design; as well as famed landscape designer Deborah Nevins, Chair of LongHouse’s Garden Committee.
Bergdoll will speak about the landscape visions of iconic modernist architecture, Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier, examining how they considered gardens to extend their vision. Whitaker will speak on Harriet Pattison, the influential landscape designer who, among other notable projects, collaborated on the masterful landscape at The FDR Memorial on Roosevelt Island and the Kimbell Art Museum, which features prominently in her book Our Days Are Like Full Years: A Memoir with Letters from Louis Kahn (2020). Smith will offer an illuminating perspective on the work of Russell Page, reflecting on how the celebrated garden designer’s sensibility bridged classical traditions with modernist innovation. Page recorded his observations and practice in his masterpiece The Education of a Gardener (1962).
Set within the modernist 16-acre sculpture garden and nature sanctuary setting of LongHouse, Landscape Legends promises to enrich our understanding of landscape in its relationship to modernism. The program focuses on design, art, and architecture. Designed by Jack Lenor Larson (1927-2020), LongHouse is the perfect place for these conversations, a place that inspires living with art in all forms, where nature and creativity are seamlessly connected, and historic ideas meld with modern concepts, is the perfect place to gather in conversations about the landscapes that define our lives.
Turin Castle Garden by Russell Page
Architecture and Landscape by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
SCHEDULE
9:30 – 10:00am: Morning Reception
10:00 – 10:45am:
Barry Bergdoll Abstraction and Nature: Gardens in the Work of
Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier
10:45 – 11:30am: Garden Walks and Nibbles
11:30am – 12:15pm: Bill Whitaker on Harriet Pattison
12:15pm – 1:30pm:
Caleb Smith A Modern Mystic: Art and Nature in the Gardens of Russell Page
followed by a conversation with Deborah Nevins
1:30pm: Garden Lunch
